Tree Service in The Grasslands, Columbia MO

Tree Care for The Grasslands Homeowners

The Grasslands is the curving, wooded neighborhood south of Stadium Boulevard between Providence and West Boulevard — Grasslands Drive, Westwood, Sunset, Burnam and the streets that wind through them. It was laid out in the 1920s and 1930s as a planned neighborhood with generous lots and deliberate tree planting, and a century later it has what is probably the deepest continuous canopy inside Columbia.

Those original burr oaks, white oaks and pin oaks are now very large, very valuable, and very close to houses that were built when they were saplings. When mid-Missouri gets a real ice event or a straight-line wind, this is the neighborhood where the phone rings the most — and it is also the neighborhood where a little preventive work makes the biggest difference.

What The Grasslands Calls Us For Most

Structural pruning and tree trimming is the core of what we do in The Grasslands. On a big open-grown oak that means deadwood removal, selective end-weight reduction on the longest limbs, and clearance over the roof — not topping, ever. Topping an oak like these destroys the structure that took a hundred years to build and guarantees a worse problem in a decade.

After a storm we are here for emergency tree service and storm cleanup, 24 hours a day. And for the trees that are declining beyond saving, tree removal and stump grinding done carefully around mature landscaping, which in this neighborhood is often as old and as valued as the trees.

The Tree Problems We See in The Grasslands

The Grasslands’ defining risk is ice loading on overmature canopy. A big oak with a hundred years of accumulated deadwood and long unreduced limbs picks up an enormous amount of weight in a quarter-inch ice event, and the failures come at the weakest points — old wounds, included-bark unions, and dead limbs that were going to come down anyway. Most of what falls in an ice storm here was identifiable as a hazard beforehand.

We also see oak decline on trees stressed by root compaction and drought cycles, hypoxylon canker on stressed oaks, and the same emerald ash borer damage as the rest of the city on the neighborhood’s ash. Our arborist consultations catch these while there are still options.

Storm Prep Beats Storm Cleanup

The single best thing a Grasslands homeowner can do is have the deadwood taken out of the big trees before winter. Dead limbs are the first thing to fail under ice, they are the cheapest thing to remove on a planned schedule, and they are the most expensive thing to deal with when they land on a roof at two in the morning.

A deadwood cleanout and clearance prune on a mature oak is routine, planned work. We would much rather do that in October than meet you in January. Call (573) 242-5335 and we will come look at your trees for free.

Honest Pricing, Free Written Estimates

We do not quote tree work over the internet, because no two trees are the same job. What it costs depends on the size and species, how close the tree is to your house or the power drop, what the access looks like, how much cleanup is involved, and whether you want the stump ground out. What does not change is how we work: a free on-site consultation, a written contract that spells out scope, cost and timing before anything starts, and a crew that leaves your The Grasslands property cleaner than they found it. Call (573) 242-5335 or send the form.

Nearby Columbia Neighborhoods We Serve

The Grasslands is one of ten Columbia neighborhoods we cover in detail. We work throughout West Broadway, Southridge and Rock Bridge as well, along with the rest of the city and the surrounding Boone County towns. If you want to know what your trees are likely up against before you call, our tree care guide and our piece on emerald ash borer in Missouri cover the problems we see most in mid-Missouri yards.